Election 2020: Long way from over
As of this writing, whether the Election Crime of the Century will be set aside by the Forces of Law and Order remains to be seen. Currently, many instances of ballot fraud and their resulting lawsuits have yet to be settled.
What we do know is that the U.S. Constitution makes the individual States and the D.C. responsible to write their own election laws. The role of the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) is to make sure the States and D.C. comply with their election laws as enacted.
Therefore, the SCOTUS cannot allow lower-courts to amend what State legislatures have written in order to favor one political party over the other. For example, by ordering the acceptance of ballots for many days beyond a State’s statutory deadline. Or, by ordering the acceptance of ballots that do not comply with State election laws.
December 8, 2020, is the deadline for resolving election disputes. With so many lawsuits in so many States alleging the failure of so many States to adhere to their own election laws and/or accepting illegal ballots, it is doubtful the deadline can be met. As long as election disputes remain unresolved, a State cannot legally issue the necessary Certificate of Attainment required by the Electoral College.
December 14, 2020, is the day on which Electors are supposed to meet in each State Capitol to cast their ballots for president and vice president. Again, if election disputes are still in the courts, the likelihood of this happening is in doubt.
December 23, 2020, is the deadline for the President of the U .S. Senate to receive the ballots from the Electors. And January 6, 2020, is the date when a Joint Session of Congress is supposed to count the Electoral Ballots. Again, none of these steps can be taken until all of the States have abided by their own election laws and all the lawsuits that have legal standing have been settled. Presumably, the SCOTUS, which now has a strict-constructionist majority, will insist that the States strictly abide by their election laws as written.
If the Electoral College process cannot decide the outcome of the presidential election and is deadlocked, the outcome of the election is given over for the House and Senate to decide. Hint: Trump-Pence win.
Wait, there’s more. In some of the States in which election fraud favored the Biden-Harris ticket, the legislatures are controlled by Republicans. The U.S. Constitution accords "plenary" powers to State legislatures to decide which slate of Electoral College Electors is to be forwarded to the Electoral College. It is completely within the power of a State legislature to discard an entire slate of Electors if the legislature thinks is it fraudulent and substitute a slate of Electors the legislature deems valid. Whether Republican-controlled legislatures will exercise their "plenary" powers remains to be seen.
Then, too, the SCOTUS might take "cognizance" of the vulnerability of electronic vote recording systems to hacking and the statistical improbability of hundreds of thousands of votes suddenly appearing after Election Day in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Georgia --almost 100-percent for Biden-Harris and zero down-ballot races checked. Bottom line: The U.S. Supreme Court may well decide what happens on January 20, 2021.
(c) 2020. William Hamilton.
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